Blog of the Jawaharlal Nehru University unit of the Students' Federation of India.

Sunday, 13 March 2016

Nation, Nationalism and Nationalities

There has been a lot of
discussion and debate ever since the incidents of 9 February 2016 on the
issues of nation and nationalism.

While the RSS-BJP-ABVP ran a massive campaign painting JNU as a centre of “anti-national
activities”, the absurdity of the
RSS - which was not part of the anti-colonial struggle of the Indian people
against British rule - talking about nation and nationalism was obvious.

Nathuram Godse was
an RSS man, and V D Savarkar — the Hindu Mahasabha leader and Sangh ideologue
who had repeatedly apologised to the British to get himself released from the
Cellular Jail in Port Blari — was also an accused in the murder of Gandhi, and
was let of only on technical grounds.

The
RSS’s majoritarian, communal-casteist-patriarchal, ruling class idea of the
nation

The RSS's ideal of India
is enshrined in the notorious motto “Hindi-Hindu-Hindusthan”. It refuses to
accept the equality of all the different nationalities that constitute and
comprise India, and which fought together in the freedom struggle against colonial
rule. The RSS seeks to impose a monolithic, communal idea of the nation, which
is evident, for instance, in the writings of M.S. Golwalkar, the Hindutva ideologue and the second Sarsanghchalak
of the RSS. He wrote in his work We or Our
Nationhood Defined:

“The foreign races (non-Hindu
people) in Hindusthan must either adopt Hindu culture and language, must either
adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in
reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification
of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lose their
separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country,
wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no
privileges, far less any preferential treatment - not even citizen's rights.”

In other words, the
minorities in this country would have no place in the RSS's concept of India. The Hindutva forces’ notion of India is exclusionary not just to
non-Hindus, but even to those within the “Hindu fold”, as the vast majority of
them do not enjoy the same socio-economic rights or cultural freedom. By
avoiding any move that will further the cause of the annihilation of caste, the
Sangh Parivar seeks to ensure the continuing support of the reactionary,
casteist sections of society. The untouchability still prevalent in Gujarat and
the criminal silence of the Sangh Parivar in this regard expose their agenda of
sustaining Brahminical supremacy. It is instructive here to note Babasaheb
Ambedkar's stark observation that as a caste-ridden society, India is still a
nation in the making: "How can people divided into several thousands of
castes be a nation? In India there are castes… The castes are
anti-national."

The students of JNU, however, have always opposed
the Sangh Parivar's bigoted ideology and held up the equality of all people,
belonging to all religions, communities, ethnicities, languages and
nationalities. They have stood up to oppose the RSS ideology which treats women
as second class citizens and as “being fit only for domestic chores”. Precisely
because of our determined opposition to the chauvinistic project of the RSS,
the Hindutva forces have made JNU a target.

Not only is the RSS's
idea of India utterly communal, casteist and patriarchal, in essence and
practice the India that it promotes is that of the
Adanis and the Ambanis and other big corporates. The workers, peasants, petty produces, Dalits, Adivasis and women
belonging to all communities lie outside this ruling class idea of India. The
economic policies of the RSS-led Modi government benefit only the ruling
classes led by the big corporates, who ultimately form a tiny section of our
population. To paraphrase what Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto, the working
people of India, consisting of the workers, peasants, Dalits, Adivasis, women
and other toiling sections, must constitute themselves the nation (though not in the bourgeois sense
of the word) in order to resolutely oppose and defeat the RSS and its communal-fascist
vision of what India ought to be.

Secular,
Anti-Imperialist Nationalism

While the RSS and its affiliates like the BJP and the ABVP
have been trying to turn India into an intolerant Hindu Rashtra,the left and
democratic movement in India, including the SFI, has stood resolutely in
opposition to this, holding aloft the flag of secular, anti-imperialist
nationalism. The very first line of the SFI Programme
(the key document that outlines the vision of the organisation) says:
“Students’ Federation of India inherits with pride the anti-imperialist,
patriotic, secular, democratic, and progressive legacy of the Indian people’s
struggle for national liberation from the British colonial rule.”

Uphold the Equality of Nationalities in India!

India is
a multi-national country, and there are two streams of national consciousness in
our country - one is the pan-Indian national consciousness and the other is the
national consciousness associated with the various nationalities or
linguistic-cultural groups that comprise India. The negation of either of these
two (the multi-national character of the country on the one hand and the unity
of the country on the other) to the exclusion of the other would be a mistake. The common struggle of the people of India against social oppression and
economic exploitation will be facilitated by the preservation of Indian unity
on the basis of the firm equality and real autonomy of the nationalities that
constitute India. The growth of secessionist forces, on the other hand, help
the ruling classes to disorganise and disrupt the people's struggle to build an
egalitarian country free of all oppression and exploitation.

On the
Question of National Self-Determination

What about
secessionist demands in some parts of the country, some might ask. To argue
that under all circumstances the secessionist position should be supported as
opposed to the position that favours union is essentially to argue that all
multi-national countries are illegitimate, which is clearly an illogical stance
to adopt. The overarching question here is whether such demands will serve the
interests of the working people or not. Thus in the 1840s Marx supported the
Polish and Hungarian national movements while opposing those of the Czechs and
the South Slavs. Marx's support to the former was guided not just by the fact
that they represented oppressed nationalities. It was also rooted in the fact
that the Polish and Hungarian movements were directed against the absolutism of
the Russian and Austrian Empires, for political democracy which was of vital
interest to the European working class at that time. He opposed the Czech and
South Slav movements because this "was at that time equivalent to indirect
support to Tsarism, the most dangerous enemy of the revolutionary movement in
Europe".

Post-World War II
history is replete with instances where secessionist demands in various
countries have been used to shore up imperialism. Imperialist support to Katangan secessionism in Congo led to the coup
against Patrice Lumumba (the first
democratically elected Prime Minister of the country) and his subsequent
assassination, resulting in a massive setback to Congo’s efforts to embark on
an autonomous path of development. The best example from more recent times is the dismantling of Yugoslavia. The
secessionist tendencies within Yugoslavia emerged as the direct result of the
“market-friendly” policies that were pursued in the country, and its actual
break-up was directly encouraged by imperialist powers which played one group
in Yugoslavia against the other. The declaration of “independence” by Kosovo in
2008 was the final act in the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Kosovo is today an imperialist protectorate, housing one of the largest
overseas military bases (Camp Bondsteel) that the US has built since the
Vietnam War.

Will the secession of any
part of India strengthen the movement of the working people, or will it play
into the hands of imperialism? Take the case of Kashmir for instance. Its secession can only
mean either of two scenarios — i.e. accession into Pakistan or setting up an
independent state. That merger into Pakistan is not going to deliver the
Kashmiri people is too obvious to require any argument. The other option of
independent Kashmir is equally if not more disastrous. Such a landlocked and
not particularly resource-rich entity is bound to become a client of
imperialism in case of secession. It will provide US imperialism a base to
unleash its machinations against all neighbouring countries. In today's circumstances,
secession of any part from India will not be into some socialist haven but into
the ambit of imperialism. This has grave implications for the working people of
the seceding nationality. They will go out of the pale of the pan-Indian
movement, thereby weakening both themselves and the general movement of the
Indian workers and toilers. The different
nationalities of our country cannot liberate themselves in isolation from each
other.

As for Kashmir, there should be demilitarisation, and
the people in the valley should be free from the oppressive security structures
and controls. The draconian Armed Forces Special Powers
Act (AFSPA) should be repealed. The excesses
and human rights violations by the security forces have to be investigated and
the guilty brought to book. Urgent steps have to be taken to revive the economy
of Jammu and Kashmir. The genuine grievances of the people of Jammu should be
addressed, and the dignified return of Kashmiri Pandits to the valley must be
taken up as part of the restoration of peace and normalcy. There should be
internal dialogue, which should proceed on the basis that maximum autonomy
should be given. The Indo-Pakistan dialogue also should advance, and more
confidence building measures can be taken to further encourage people to people
movement and contacts across the LoC as the dialogue moves forward.

Government policies and the uneven development that is
inherent to capitalism have nurtured and increased inequalities between
different states. The inexorable law of uneven capitalist development is bound
to assert even more viciously in circumstances marked by the retreat of the
State from economic activities. This will lead to growing demands for justice
among different nationalities. Their genuine demands must be championed while
steering clear of any form of nationality chauvinism and secessionist trends,
in the true spirit of Indian unity and proletarian internationalism.
Fraternal/sororal bonds of class and national solidarity must be forged among
different nationalities and linguistic States.

The emancipation of people belonging to all
nationalities in India and the success of their struggle against all traces of
national inequality rests with the unity and united struggle of the working
people of India. The SFI, whose 23 comrades have been martyred at the hands of
separatist elements in the country during the 1980s and the 1990s, stands
resolutely in defence of this cause.

(From 'Resistance', the newsletter brought out by SFI JNU Unit in March 2016)